As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve picked up a worrying habit in the last couple years: I’ve been sleep-record-shopping. I will often wake up to order confirmation emails for records I don’t remember buying. I’m now pretty sure it’s a side effect of my new ADHD meds, but it hasn’t been enough of a problem for me to want to do something. It’s like a little gift from myself, and even my subconscious self is aware enough to keep to a certain budget.

Well, usually anyway. I got some money for Christmas that Sleepytime Nat has decided should be used to splurge, and he bought two pretty pricey records—that I’ve never listened to, mind you—in the last couple weeks that have raised my eyebrow.

The real problem is though…it’d be a lot harder to be mad at him if he didn’t have such great taste. One record was Loss, by the excellent British post-metal band Pijn, and the other was this: Common Era by Belong.

Belong was, by all metrics, an ambient drone band. They had released a number of largely formless texture experiments a lá Brian Eno that were well received. Then, after a three year absence, they released a shoegaze record, complete vocals and pulsing drum machines. However, the songs aren’t too much more coherent than their other work.

Belong has a way of creating walls of guitars that make Kevin Shields seem like Steely Dan. The thick sheen of lo-fi reverb drenching the sound of the record isn’t an effect: it’s the main attraction. Think Grouper on steroids, or the hazy side of Cryptograms by Deerhunter without the moments where they step out of the fog to deliver the song, or maybe even the liquid, mercurial noise experiments of Rafael Toral’s Wave Field put to the urgent pace and brooding mechanicalness of Joy Division. After all, Torel’s experiment was inspired by the awful acoustics of a Nirvana set he saw. Substitute Joy Division there, and it’s likely he would have made this record instead.

It is a blissfully hypnotic record. There’s something of the same modus operandi as Sunn O))), using noise as a mood altering drug. It’s the sort of sadomasochistic thought that if you weaponize sound and use it to destroy your audience, they will love you for it.

My most succinct description has been if Sunn O))) was My Bloody Valentine and decided to make Loveless a Joy Division cover record.

And I know I keep naming the same three bands, but I can’t ignore how clear the similarities. And I do mean in a good way. It has an almost Tarantino-esque ability to wink at the audience in a way that lets everyone in on the gag. Because whatever weird compulsions he has and as insufferable as he is as a person, Kill Bill is an excellent movie.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. I think Sunn O))) (and Kevin Shields) are right: this type of torrential noise is a drug. I highly recommend turning this up as loud as you can stand it, then nudge it up just a little more and just letting it crush you. I don’t know if this is what Sleepytime Nat knew that this was the experience he was giving me, but I’m grateful he did. He can keep my debit card.

For now.